Samuel J. Barrows

Samuel June Barrows (May 26, 1845 - April 21, 1909) was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.

He was born in New York City. He worked as secretary to William H. Seward, and was married to Isabel Barrows, who filled in for him as a stenographer in 1868 while he was ill, becoming the first woman employed by the State Department. He graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in the fall of 1871. While at Harvard, he was the Boston correspondent of the New York Tribune.

He went with the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873, under the command of General Stanley, and with the Black Hills Expedition in 1874, commanded by General Custer. In 1873 he took part in the Battle of the Tongue River and the Battle of Little Big Horn.

He was pastor of the first parish, Dorchester (Boston), Massachusetts, from 1876-1881, when he resigned to become editor of the Christian Register, with Isabel as the associate editor, positions they held for 16 years. [cite book
url= http://books.google.com/books?id=DrYoyAM3PBYC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=isabel+barrows&source=web&ots=wreyo9Xck8&sig=eJohTgVabyZUHxiskPnCkzDCp8M#PPA16,M1
title= The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response
author= Peter Balakian
quote= By virtue of her talent at the new "science" of stenography, she was called on in 1868 to fill in for her ill husband, June, then secretary to William Seward, President Andrew Johnson's Secretary of State...]

He was the American representative to the International Prison Congress of 1895, 1900, and 1905, at which he was elected to serve as president of the 1910 congress.

Barrows was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1897-March 3, 1899). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1898 to the Fifty-sixth Congress. After which he was Secretary of the New York Prison Association from 1899 to 1909.

He died on April 21, 1909, of pneumonia in New York City’s Presbyterian Hospital. He remains were cremated and the ashes placed in a private burying ground near Georgeville, Quebec, Canada.

References

* L.F.F., "Barrows, Samuel June," American Reformers, 1985 ed., 56.
* Robert P. Weiss. "Barrows, Samuel June," Biographical Dictionary of Social Welfare in America, 1986 ed., 69.

External links

* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7940785 Samuel J. Barrows] at Find-A-Grave
*worldcat id|id=lccn-n85-813548

Footnotes